Behind The Scenes
A few quick updates:
- Upgraded to Wordpress 2.9
- Added an Amazon aStore link
- Added a projects portal
- Spoke to some remarkable individuals from the VCE industry
- Reconsidering the direction my blog is heading
Wordpress 2.9 introduced a new bug that has forced me to take down my Twitter integration temporarily. Hopefully it will be back soon, but I think I’ll put it on the sidebar now. As a consequence, my splash bar now has an elongated Featured Project field, and I’ve replaced the Merspi logo with a sneak peek at the home page instead.
I’ve snuck in an Amazon aStore link into my sidebar, for anyone who wants to check out the books I’d recommend or like to buy. They give me commission, but I’m not really expecting to cash out from it. My primary objective is to recommend good books that I like. If you’re into books, have a look at it.
I’d actually probably recommend you to buy somewhere else if I was savvy about book purchasing, but I usually end up impulsively buying books from Borders impulsively — clearly I don’t look for the cheapest price!
You can also have a look at my projects portal, where I showcase some of the projects I’m involved in. I finally have something online about my VCE tutoring services, which I’ve often relied on word of mouth for — hence the delay in bringing this page out.
I’ve recently had the opportunity to speak with two interesting individuals in the VCE industry: Daniel Dobos and Derrick Ha, who both do completely different things, and have completely different backgrounds. My conversations with them have generated plenty of new ideas to take to the road ahead. For me, this has also been an accidental comfort zone challenge. Meeting someone I’ve never met before, and having a chat over coffee with them is something I’ve never done before.
Something that I really need to think about with my personal blog is what direction do I want to take it in? Do I want to gain readership, or do I want it to be a personal branding site for people who want to Google my name (i.e.: employers)? I think I’ve used the latter too often as an excuse for not trying to develop my readership further. I think I’d like to develop a readership, but I also understand that nobody wants to read about just my life. I need to have a think about what niche do I want to develop a relationship with, and how I can keep up to date with the content.
I’d be excited to listen to your feedback guys. Best wishes for the holiday season, and I’ll speak to you in 2010.
Tags: amazon, blogging, entrepreneurship, merspi, vce, wordpress
To take a leaf from Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, find your passion and (maybe) cash in on it.
Here’s a few questions for thought,
What do you like talk about for hours on end?
What excites you?
Where do people consider you a natural leader?
What’s your ‘tribe’?
Find your niche and establish yourself as the ‘Best X blog’. There’s no point wasting time aiming to be mediocre in a field of other blogs – what do you think you know better than anyone else?
The great thing about the Internet is that you can write the ‘Best tomato sauce blog’ and thanks to Google and Social Media – you can connect with the other twenty people in the world who are as obsessed about tomato sauce as you are.
Also – my other hot tip is don’t just settle on blogging. Everyone is blogging these days. Video blogging and podcasting are as ‘edgy’ as blogging was a few years ago. But, at the same time – they can have potentially huge pay offs for the individuals doing them.
Well, the next blog entry on my mind is something along the lines of: “How to get free tutoring” (and it won’t be an advertisment!) — however, I think I will run out of things to say for tuition, and the lifeline of that career is limited (i.e.: this is not where I want to stay).
Right now my blog is a mesh of tuition advice, economics (opinion and ideas) and news about me (which should be turned into stories that incorporate my experiences, as I have done with some of my posts).
I think I might focus on something to do with “online economics and politics”, similar to Chris Anderson (@chr1sa) but with a focus on how reduced information friction (from the web) might affect the way we should head forward in policy-making.
completely irrelevant to the post, but I think splitting your posts so that readers have to click to read more to continue reading will make your homepage less cluttered and encourage people to read your old posts =] just a thought.
POOO!
I pop in and check if there are any new posts every once and a while. I like the philosophies you have towards things and life in general. Some more content would be nice though.
Hey kingpomba,
Thanks for the lovely feedback! It means a lot :)
I’ve got 3 blog post ideas on the backburner, needing to get processed one day, but unfortunately I have other priorities at the moment.
Should be able to tell some good stories in the near future!